Methods and apparatus for providing a resting or sleeping environment for pregnant women have a long history of development. As pregnancy progresses, a woman's ability to find a comfortable resting position on conventional mattresses decreases significantly. In past years, this has led to the development of many types of mattresses having a suitably located central cavity to accommodate the distended abdomen. However, the degree and orientation of abdomen expansion changes dramatically over time, and a mattress with a more or less static cavity size, or other fixed attributes, cannot provide the needed comfort and other health benefits for the full range of fetus development.
Recently, air mattresses of various types have been proposed, some of which have moved the pregnancy mattress art in useful directions. The basic ability of an inflatable air mattress does allow for a certain amount of dynamic accommodation over time.
Descriptions of typical prior art approaches to air mattresses for pregnant women may be found in a number of U.S. patents. Consider first U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,348 to Ryan, which teaches the use of a number of separate inflatable cells of various sizes to allow adjustability of a womb well formed into an inflatable maternity mattress.
An even earlier 1976 patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,988,793 to Abitbol, discloses the technique of using individually inflatable oval-shaped sections within an air mattress for pregnant women such that the user can establish the degree of firmness desired. A separately operable vacuum pump operates on a bottom chamber portion of an abdomen supporting section to relieve unwanted pressures on various physiological structures, such as the abdomen aorta.
Additionally, many U.S. design patents suggest other more or less similar approaches with U.S. design Pat. No. 348,792 to DeGroot, and U.S. design Pat. No. 350,586 to Francis, being typical ones.
Beyond the maternity mattress teachings, a number of prior art mattress are of cumulative interest. U.S. Pat. No. 4,329,748 to Finkelstein, discloses the use of an array of flexible structures interiorly located within inflatable structures (a waterbed in this case) for the purpose of providing shape and load control.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,741,780 to Kimbrig discloses the broad technique of employing internal partitions to minimize upward and outward bulging of the top and sidewalls of an inflatable mattress core.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,807,033 to Austen discloses an early (1957) teaching of forming a plurality of interconnected openings into a sponge rubber mattress to support comfortable breathing when a person is lying on his stomach.
While each of these prior art teachings appear to be addressing selected aspects of providing an ideal resting or sleeping medium for pregnant women--or indeed for persons in general or obese or infirm persons--they have not addressed the full range of attributes needed. It is especially this comprehensive set of physical needs that the present invention admirably meets, with its specially configured combination of contouring, separate air chambers, and shape integrity retaining internal baffles and gussets.